Almost
by Llyzbeth
Summary: Alternate ending to 'Non Sequitur', Harry tries to get home
1. Introduction

It's not that "Non Sequitur" was a bad episode. It just wasn't anything special. They could've done some really weird stuff with it, but in the end, they took the safe route. For anybody who doesn't know what I'm talking about, here's an episode summary:  
  
After a strange shuttlecraft accident, Harry Kim wakes up to find himself in San Francisco. Even though he clearly remembers being lost in the Delta Quadrant with Voyager, everybody else around him knows he's a Starfleet design specialist, engaged to his beautiful girlfriend Libby, and was never assigned to Voyager. He's torn between being happy that he's together with Libby, and being angry that everything seems wrong, and not the way it's "supposed to be."  
  
He eventually contacts Tom Paris, who also never left with Voyager. Tom doesn't know Harry or anything about Voyager, and seems happily miserable as a drunk and a loser.  
  
Starfleet finds out he's been breaking into classified files on Voyager, and talking to Tom, a former Maquis. At best, they think he's deranged. At worst, they think he's a spy. After being given electronic anklet that lets Starfleet monitor his every moment, Harry meets up with Cosimo, the coffee shop owner who seems to know him.  
  
Cosimo admits that during the shuttlecraft accident, Harry somehow intersected with a "time-stream", and ended up in San Franisico with a changed history. Cosimo is actually an alien, sent to make sure Harry's okay. Since he's clearly not, Cosimo gives him a device that can locate the time-stream, and if Harry can somehow recreate the shuttle accident, he can get back to Voyager. Maybe.  
  
Determined to return to his own time, Harry runs from Starfleet. Tom, who's decided that his own life would be much better if Harry's right, helps Harry steal a shuttle prototype. Their shuttle is attacked by a ship sent to bring them back. With a warp-core breach imminent, they intersect with the time-stream. Nothing happens. Harry then remembers that Voyager tried to beam him out of the shuttle during the accident. He realizes Tom has to beam him out of the shuttle, straight into the time-stream. Tom does so, at the cost of his own life, as the shuttle's warp core breaches.  
  
Harry blinks, and finds himself back at the moment of the accident. This time, though, Voyager manages to beam him back safely. Everything is completely back to normal.  
  
END SUMMARY  
  
Okay, keep everything up to the point where Tom beams Harry out of the shuttle. After that, things go a little differently..  
  
DISCLAIMER: Voyager and everything on it belongs to other people who make a lot of money off of it. I'm just messing with it for fun. And the idea behind this story has been done many times before, by better writers than I. Why yes, I'd love some feedback, thanks! 


	2. Almost

Harry tried to fling himself off the transporter pad, but it was too late. The transporter field shimmered around him, cutting off his last view of Tom at the controls.  
  
A bright light cut through the transporter field. "Core breach," Harry thought. "Goodbye Tom." He closed his eyes against the light, wondering if death by explosion would be better than death by vacuum if this didn't work.  
  
He opened his eyes. He was back on the old shuttle. Smiling with relief, he ignored the buffeting of the time-stream around him, and opened a channel to Voyager.  
  
"Ensign Kim here," he said. "Anybody want to get me the heck out of here."  
  
"Koshictch haataclu?" The Captain's voice asked. Harry blinked at the intercom. "Digitama vu araglia? Ladga?"  
  
Unbelievable. It SOUNDED like the Captain. But the words..  
  
Chakotay was shouting something now, but Harry couldn't make out a word of it.  
  
He looked down at the console. Everything was in the right place, but none of the words made any sense. The language was completely different.  
  
"Wrong time," he whispered. He wasn't home yet.  
  
"Taragaimel oncuh eli!" the voice pleaded.  
  
"Sorry," Harry mumbled, and cut the connection. Punching at the controls from memory, Harry swung the shuttle back towards the time stream and recreated the scans he'd been performing at the moment of the accident. "Maybe it was a 36 instead of a 45-delta wave scan.."  
  
Seconds before he hit the time-stream again, Harry set the transporter for delay, and jumped onto the pad.  
  
Nothing happened.  
  
It's not gonna work, Harry thought. I hit the wrong controls the time- stream damaged the equipment the delay was set too short..  
  
The transporter field kicked in, and Harry disappeared into shimmering light.  
  
He blinked, and looked around. The inside of the old shuttle. Again.  
  
He looked down at the controls. Everything was readable, the language was normal. He looked around him. Everything SEEMED okay, but..something wasn't right. He just felt..odd..  
  
Looking out the viewscreen at the edges of the time-stream, Harry punched in a channel to Voyager.  
  
"Um..Harry to Voyager, is everything..okay?"  
  
"Welcome back, drone 462A-Beta," a voice purred, not over the channel, but in his MIND, as a Borg ship dropped into view.  
  
Harry slowly tore his gaze away from the ship to look at the smooth, reflective metal of the bulkhead.  
  
His terrified face, covered in delicate Borg implants, stared back at him.  
  
He never did remember the next few seconds. He simply became aware that he'd turned the shuttle around and blindly reset the sensors as a voice he didn't recognize as his own, hoarse from screaming, whimpered "I'm not me I'm not me I'm not me I'm not me I'm.."  
  
Setting the transporter, trying not to look at his hands, Harry threw himself at the transporter pad, ignoring the feel of metal in his skin, the taste of the implants in his mouth, and the voice in his head, calling him back to the ship..  
  
The transporter shimmered around him, the voice became silent, and he blinked at the familiar surroundings of the old shuttle. Again.  
  
He frantically patted his face. No metal, just skin. He glanced at the controls. No gibberish, nothing out of the ordinary.  
  
He opened a channel. "Voyager..?"  
  
"Harry!" the Captain's voice called over the channel. "Hang on, we're trying to beam you back now."  
  
"Wait wait!" he shouted. "Before you do..is Tom there?"  
  
A long pause. "Yes, he's here, why?"  
  
"Everybody's okay then?"  
  
"Yes, just fine." More impatient this time.  
  
"I'm still just an Ensign, on Voyager, in the Delta quadrant?"  
  
"Yes, Harry Kim, Ensign, assigned to Voyager, soon to be the LATE Ensign Harry Kim if we don't beam you out of there right now!"  
  
I'm me again, he thought as Voyager's transporter beam surrounded him. No fiancée, no design job, just me.  
  
The thought felt right. A little sad maybe, but right.  
  
The transporter room materialized around him, with Tom, B'Elanna, and Tuvok waiting for him.  
  
"Good to see you, Harry," Tom said cheerfully.  
  
He opened his mouth to reply, and suddenly found his arms full of B'Elanna, who was squeezing the breath out of him.  
  
"You EVER scare me like that again," she whispered fiercely into his ear, "and the wedding's off." He heard the laugh in her voice, but he also heard the relief. He tried to say something again, but she was kissing him, hard, as his hands slid up to tentatively touch her hair, her face..  
  
A chuckle made them look up. Tom was grinning at them. Tuvok cleared his throat.  
  
"Welcome home, Ensign Kim,"  
  
"Yeah," Harry said, smiling down into B'Elanna's eyes. "Close enough." 


End file.
